A dripping faucet is the plumbing problem people are most likely to ignore and most likely to be able to fix themselves, so the free version is below before anything else. What we will say plainly: faucets fail faster in San Antonio than almost anywhere, because water testing 15 to 20 grains per gallon deposits minerals on every sealing surface inside the fixture.
Try this before you call anyone
If the complaint is weak flow at a single faucet, this resolves it roughly half the time and costs nothing but an hour of waiting.
- Unscrew the aerator from the tip of the spout, by hand or with tape-wrapped pliers so the finish is not marked.
- Take it apart. There is usually a screen and one or two plastic inserts — note the order they came out in.
- Soak the parts in white vinegar for an hour to dissolve the scale.
- Scrub gently with an old toothbrush, rinse, and reassemble in the same order.
If flow returns, it was scale and you are finished. If it does not, and other fixtures are weak too, the faucet is a bystander — that usually points at a pressure regulator, a partly closed main, or a leak upstream.
Cartridge, ceramic disc, ball or compression
Four mechanisms cover nearly every faucet in a San Antonio house, and knowing which one you have tells you whether a drip is a two-dollar part or a new fixture.
A compression faucet has separate hot and cold handles that keep turning until they stop hard, and it seals with a rubber washer. Those are the oldest, and a dripping compression faucet is almost always a washer or a worn seat — cheap, and worth doing. A cartridge faucet has a handle that moves through a fixed arc; the cartridge is a sealed unit that gets swapped whole. Ball faucets are the single-lever kitchen type with a rotating ball and a set of springs and seats underneath, and they have the most parts of any faucet, which is why they are the ones that come back.
Ceramic disc is what most of what is sold now uses. Two polished discs shear across each other, and they are close to immortal — except against grit and scale, which is precisely what our water delivers. A ceramic disc faucet that has started passing water almost always has mineral debris on the discs rather than a worn part.
What usually goes wrong
A constant drip from the spout
A worn cartridge, ceramic disc or rubber washer depending on the faucet type. Scale scores the sealing surfaces until they no longer close fully.
A leak at the base of the spout
Failed O-rings where the spout swivels. Different part, different repair from a spout drip, and routinely confused with it.
Weak flow at one faucet only
Almost always a clogged aerator. If every fixture is weak, the problem is supply rather than fixture.
A handle that is stiff or loose
Mineral buildup binding the cartridge, or a stripped handle broach. Forcing a stiff handle is how a cartridge gets destroyed.
Water under the sink
Supply connections, the drain tailpiece, or the faucet body itself. Worth identifying fast — cabinet bases absorb water and stay wet.
A sprayer that will not retract or weeps
A failed diverter, or a pull-down hose worn through where it passes the counter deck.
Repair or replace
| Situation | Usually the right call |
|---|---|
| Drip, stiff handle or base leak on a quality faucet | Repair Cartridges and O-ring kits are inexpensive and good brands still supply parts. |
| Builder-grade fixture older than about ten years | Replace Parts are often discontinued and the finish is usually past its best. |
| Corrosion or pitting on the faucet body | Replace Once the body is compromised, sealing internally will not hold. |
| You want a different configuration | Replace, and check hole spacing first. Three-hole to single-hole needs a deck plate. |
| Second repair on the same faucet within two years | Replace In this water the pattern rarely improves. |
Choosing a faucet that survives this water
Price on the shelf tells you less than what the body is made of. A solid brass faucet body outlasts a zinc-alloy one by years in water this hard, and from the outside on the shelf they look identical. The way to tell is weight and the manufacturer’s own description, and it is the single thing most worth asking about when you buy.
The second thing is whether replacement parts exist. The major brands publish cartridge numbers and most operate a lifetime parts warranty, so a faucet that drips in year eight is a free part and a service call. An unbranded fixture with no parts channel is a whole new faucet when one seal goes, whatever it cost originally.
Finish matters less than people expect, with one exception: on hard water, brushed and matte finishes hide the spotting that shows immediately on polished chrome. That is a maintenance preference rather than a durability one, but it is the thing homeowners here notice every day.
Why they wear out faster in this city
Cartridges and ceramic discs work by two smooth surfaces sealing against each other. Hard water leaves mineral deposits on those surfaces, and every turn of the handle drags the deposits across the seal like grit. What would be a decade of service elsewhere often becomes four or five years here.
Aerators show it first, because the screen is the finest opening in the system. If you are cleaning aerators more than once a year, that is a signal about the water rather than about the faucets, and a whole-home softener addresses the cause instead of the symptom.
The kitchen, the bathroom and the one outside
A kitchen faucet works harder than anything else in the house and it is usually the pull-down sprayer that fails first — the hose retracts through a weight and a guide, and when the spray head starts dripping or the hose will not pull out smoothly, that assembly is the part to replace rather than the whole fixture.
Bathroom fixtures come in two layouts and they are not interchangeable. A centerset faucet spans four inches between the outer holes; a widespread has separate handles at eight inches or more. Swapping between them means either a new sink top or an escutcheon plate, so the deck layout is the first thing to check before anyone buys anything.
Outside is its own problem. A standard hose bib in San Antonio will freeze and split in a hard winter, and the split is usually inside the wall where nothing shows until spring. A frost-proof sillcock puts the shut-off back inside the heated envelope, and fitting one at the same time as any other outdoor faucet work is the cheapest it will ever be. Every outdoor faucet also needs a working vacuum breaker, which is the small cap on top that people tend to remove when it starts weeping — that part is a backflow device, not a decoration.
Fitting a new faucet
A standard replacement takes an hour to ninety minutes. We shut off the supplies, remove the old fixture, and clean the deck properly — old plumber’s putty and mineral crust left in place is exactly why a new faucet can end up sitting unevenly — then set the new unit, fit new supply lines rather than reusing the old ones, and test under pressure.
Two things are worth checking before you buy: how many mounting holes your sink or countertop has, and whether the sink is stainless, composite or cast iron, because that affects which mounting hardware works. Send us a photo and we will tell you what fits.
What it costs
- Repair or replacementA cartridge or O-ring kit is the low end. A full replacement includes removal, deck cleaning, new supply lines and the fixture itself.
- Which faucetKitchen pull-downs and widespread lavatory sets take longer than a single-hole bar faucet. The fixture you choose is usually the bigger number.
- What is under the sinkSeized angle stops are common on older installs, and replacing them while we are in there costs far less than coming back for them.
- How many fixturesSeveral faucets in one visit costs less per fixture than separate appointments.
We will tell you honestly when a repair is the better value and when you are paying to keep a fixture alive that is not worth it.
Old shut-offs are what turn a ten-minute job into a morning
Fitting a faucet is straightforward. What is not straightforward is what sits under the sink when the house is thirty years old.
The angle stops — the little valves on the wall — seize in place, and a multi-turn stop that has not moved since installation will often refuse to close, or close and then weep afterwards. We replace those as a matter of course on any faucet installation where they look their age, because the alternative is leaving you with a fixture you cannot isolate the next time something goes wrong. Quarter-turn ball stops go in instead, and they keep working.
Supply lines are the same story. Old chrome risers and the early braided lines both fail, and a supply line that lets go under a cabinet does not announce itself until the floor is ruined. New braided stainless lines cost very little alongside a faucet replacement and they remove the one failure under there that does real damage.
If the mounting nuts under the deck have corroded solid, that is normal and it is what a basin wrench is for. It is also the point at which a straightforward faucet swap stops being a job worth doing on your own back on a Sunday.
When it is not the faucet
If flow is weak at every fixture rather than one, the faucet is not the problem — that pattern usually means a failed pressure regulator, a partly closed main, or a leak upstream, and a meter that keeps turning with the house shut off points to a leak outside. If the water is discoloured or smells, that is a supply or water heater question. Under-sink water that keeps coming back after a faucet repair is often the drain rather than the supply, in which case it belongs with drain work or the disposal if one is fitted.
Touchless, filtered and the rest of it
A touchless faucet is a solenoid valve and a sensor with a battery pack or a transformer behind it. They work well and they are genuinely useful over a kitchen sink with raw chicken on the board. Two things to know: the battery pack lives under the sink and will need changing every year or two, and when the electronics fail the faucet usually fails closed rather than open, so you are without that tap until it is fixed.
Filtered faucets come in two shapes. Some have a separate small spout fed from an under-sink cartridge; others run the filtration through the main faucet. The separate-spout version is simpler to service and does not put filtered water through a mixing valve. Either way the filter is for taste and chlorine rather than hardness, and neither is a substitute for treating the water properly if scale is the real complaint.
What a faucet call looks like on the day
Most faucet work is a single visit. We carry cartridges and seat kits for the common brands, so a drip that turns out to be a worn part is usually finished on the first call rather than booked in again once something arrives.
Where a fixture is being replaced, we clear the cabinet, isolate at the angle stops, and check the stops and supply lines before the new faucet goes in — those get reported and priced before anything is cut, not added to the bill afterwards. The deck is cleaned up, the aerator is flushed through, and we run the tap long enough to be sure the joints are dry under load rather than just dry.
We cover San Antonio and the surrounding towns, and faucet work is quoted as a flat price for the visit rather than by the hour. The workmanship carries our five-year warranty.
Work is carried out by licensed plumbers under our Responsible Master Plumber, license RMP-43333, issued by the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners. You can verify that license yourself.
What San Antonio homeowners say
Reviews pulled live from our Google Business Profile, not retyped here.
Questions homeowners ask us
Why does it drip even when I turn it off tight?
The internal cartridge, ceramic disc or washer has worn and no longer seals. Turning harder does not help and usually accelerates the damage. It is a part replacement rather than an adjustment.
Why is pressure low at one faucet but fine everywhere else?
A clogged aerator, nearly every time. The aerator screen is the finest opening in the system so it catches mineral scale first. Unscrewing it and soaking it in vinegar for an hour resolves it in most cases.
Is a dripping faucet actually worth fixing?
Yes, on two counts. A steady drip wastes a meaningful amount of water over a year, and the drip itself is evidence the cartridge is failing — which tends to progress into a handle that will not shut off properly at all.
How long should a faucet last here?
Roughly four to eight years for a builder-grade fixture, longer for quality brands, which is shorter than the same faucet would manage in softer water. Mineral content is the limiting factor rather than the mechanism.
Can I replace a faucet myself?
Often, particularly a straightforward like-for-like swap. The usual snags are corroded mounting nuts in a tight cabinet, supply lines that will not seal when reused, and hole spacing that does not match the new fixture.
What causes a leak at the base of the spout rather than the tip?
Worn O-rings where the spout rotates on the body. It is a different repair from a dripping spout and the two are frequently confused, which is why replacing a cartridge sometimes fails to stop a base leak.
Do I need to shut off water to the whole house?
Not usually. Most sinks have angle stops under the cabinet that isolate that fixture. If those valves are seized, which is common on older ones, the main does have to come off — and replacing the angle stops while we are there is worth doing.
Will you install a faucet I bought myself?
Yes. Send a photo of the fixture and of your sink deck beforehand and we will confirm it fits before the visit.
Is it worth repairing a faucet or should I just replace it?
If the body is solid brass, the brand still supplies parts and you like the look of it, repair it — a cartridge is a fraction of the cost of a new fixture and fitting. If it is a zinc-bodied unbranded faucet past its first decade, or if it has already been repaired once, the replacement is the better spend.
Why does a new faucet still have low pressure?
Nine times out of ten it is the aerator, packed with the scale that came loose while the work was done. It unscrews and rinses out. If it is not that, the angle stop may not be fully open, or the supply line may be kinked behind the cabinet.
Can you fit a faucet I bought myself?
Yes, and plenty of people do. We will tell you before we start if the fixture will not suit the deck layout or if the parts supplied with it are not up to the job, which is worth knowing while it is still returnable.
Try the aerator first. Call us for anything leaking.
If it is dripping, weeping at the base, or there is water in the cabinet, that is a part failing rather than a quirk — and cabinet bases do not dry out.